The Half-Jotun King's Sons
by jaqueline-littlebird
Summary: Jötnar are innately cruel, with a magic gift and a taste for raw meat (including that of the slain). Half-Jotun king Odin is very disappointed that his older sons Balder and Thor are not up to the level of ruthlessness a true king needs. (Rated for some violence and just in case.)
1. Chapter 1

A/N: This was written for a prompt over at norsekink LJ.

Disclaimer: Not mine, Marvel's. No money made. Applies to all chapters.

Music: "Trout Quintet" by Franz Schubert

**Trout Fishing**

One hot summer day, the boys went fishing. Thor, Fandral and Hogun cast their lines time and again, sitting on the sunny bank of the creek, watching the dragonflies buzz by, while Fulla (Frigga's maid) set out blankets and picknick food, and the Einherjar guards on watch idled in the shadows under a willow tree.

The fish were slow to bite, and Sif had not shown up to amuse them with her attempts at teaching herself spear-fishing. Balder and Volstagg, who were older, were away training swordfighting.

Just when Thor was about to declare he was growing bored, a blue-furred otter surfaced, dragging a wriggling trout by the tail, and changed back into Loki on the gravelly shore. „Got one!" crowed the youngest prince, showing sharp teeth. „Anyone want a bite?"

Fandral cheered the catch, while Hogun grimly cast his line once more.

Thor wrinkled his nose. „You're going to eat it?"

„Yup." Loki licked his lips. Not bothering to kill the gasping fish first, he produced an ice blade and slid the belly open. „It's a female!" His eyes lit up with delight as the pink roe bulged out. „Mmmm. Want some?" Loki asked around after stuffing his own face with the slimy mass.

Fandral choked, turning away. Thor grimaced. „At least kill it before eating."

His younger brother paused and looked at the still gasping fish as if seeing it for the first time. „Why would I?" He shrugged. „It can't hurt me and it can't escape." Then he carefully cut a filet out.

Some bites later, Loki declared the sun was too hot and went to cool off in the creek some more. He thrust the remainders of the trout at Thor. „I saved the brains for you, brother. Father says if you eat more of those, your magic will get stronger. And how can you stand this heat?"

Father did say that, a lot. At least Thor had some magic – a vague affinity to clouds and lightning, his tutors said. That was better than Balder, who was practically magicless, but no match for Loki, who was taking after Father and grandmother Bestla most of all the Odinssons. The tyke could turn anything into icecream. It was unfair. At least he usually shared.

Grimacing with disgust and swallowing bile, Thor cracked the now dead trout's skull open and sucked the brains out. One day, he would learn to invoke the snowstorm, ride out with the Wild Hunt and make Father proud.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: I took some liberties with history/timeline in this and the following chapter. Please be lenient.

Music: "Odin's Court / Winds of Valhalla" by Black Sabbath, "Sing Child" by ASP

**Midgard for Entertainment**

For long years, Thor and Loki had stuck together as if joined at the hip, but lately, that had changed. Of course it was about the weapons training. Thor showed an aptitude for close combat, for fighting with blunt and heavy weapons, his tutors had determined.

(„Close combat is for minions, unless done for sport." Father had commented with a sigh.)

At least his magic had strengthened, and he was able to invoke the lightning now. His outlook to join the Wild Hunt was poor, though, since riding was quite beyond him. It had taken him years to stay in the saddle, and then he still needed both hands on the reigns, unable to cast lightning under way, or so much as throw a javelin.

Sif had once jested Thor would have to joust from an oxcart. He still felt grim satisfaction that Loki had shorn the bratty girl's head the night after.

Loki, of course, was a natural with horses. As a shapeshifter, he had better understanding of animals than anyone else. When Thor could still barely hang on, Loki directed his mount whith the knees alone, shooting arrows or casting spells to his centaur teacher's delight.

So they had been separated, Thor hacking at training dummies, while Loki honed his ranged weapons skills, from throwing knives to calculating the trajectories for inter-planetary missiles. Thor wished he had known earlier how math was an important skill for a warrior. It likely would not have changed a thing, though.

What made Odin's middle son really jealous were the evenings his little brother got to spend with their father, playing hnefatafl. Of course it was a board game just for two, so trying to join them was quite pointless. One evening, though, he was so starved for a word from Father that he decided to sneak up on them.

* * *

„I shall build a wall." Loki said, „All along my northern border."

Oddly, they did not have the gameboard out. They were bending over Odin's scrying pond. Thor went very still behind his pillar.

„Are you sure?" Father gave Loki a doubtful stare. „Do you really think the wall will keep the nomads off?"

"Maybe not, but it will give the people in the provinces along the border confidence. They won't panick and flee south. Same reason Xianyang makes a much better capital city than Nanjing."

„Mmh-hmmm. But have you seen, my son: You can not feed your workers? Once you'll take them from the fields, you won't have rice surplus any more, and the transport ..."

„Of course, father, I considered that." Loki looked up confidently. „I'm planning ahead. Once you'll send the cold and drought to drive the nomads on from the fringe, a lot of my farmers are going to starve anyway, aren't they? So I can as well work a million or two to death now, thus putting the rest in a good position."

„That's my boy!" the Allfather declared proudly, walking over and ruffling Loki's hair.

Thor, still in hiding, felt nauseous. They were playing with one of the entertainment planets. And then they both looked at him. Maybe he had made a noise.

„Thor, won't you join us?" Loki grinned. „Father and I are playing. It is so much fun. You must try!"

Father scowled. „Are you willing to cede your position to your brother, Loki?"

„'Course not, but Midgard is large. Well, Rome is in Balder's game, but there's that double continent across the ocean … Couldn't he take one of those small city states in the Petén, and you the highlanders? Or – wait" he shot the both of them hopeful glances, „how about you take Cuicuilco, father, and he Teotihuacán? Thor doesn't mind the heat. Or do you, brother?"

There was, for sure, something sinister to it. Heat? Thor didn't mind hot weather much. Was that town a furnace, that it made his little brother grin so? But then, if he played for but one hour, millions of mortals would live on at least that long in that other state where Loki was willing to sacrifice them for some building project.

In all the sagas, what impressed the young thunderer most was protecting the weak and innocent. He had a duty to play now, he did! Maybe he could even protect the humans in the town he'd play. He fervently wished so.

More importantly, it would be time with Father.

Time ran differently in Asgard than it did in the lands of the mortals. The gods had their own time-frame to go by. In what seemed like days, but may have been just a long night, Thor gained his believers' respect by bringing them rain, had them build temples in his honour, taught them to brew a barely tolerable beverage from agave sap, fought the people from the town his father played in some little skirmishes, then took in the refugees from there when a volcano nearby obliterated that city state.

Had it been a victory on the training grounds, Thor would have hopped with joy, but his father's scowl made very clear this outcome of the 'game' was undesired.

Contemplating it further, he realized it was. A chance victory, by circumstances, unworthy of a true warrior … and so many had died from that eruption, the earthquakes, and the following failed crops. But nobody could help that, could they? At least he had done his best – and won. Shouldn't that count for something? Thor was dismissed and sent to bed.

Loki had to stay, presumably for a lecture. On what, his brother wasn't sure.

* * *

The next day, the brothers sat by the garden pond, sharing rolls and steak tartare. „You were great!" Loki assured Thor once more. „Your first game, and you won!"

Thor really wanted to believe it, but winning against Father, on the very first game? „What did father tell you, after he sent me away?" he asked, dreading the answer.

„Hm? Oh, nothing." Loki replied.

„No, truly, brother, please tell me! I know I couldn't have won by my own skill."

„If you insist." Loki grinned. Leaning over conspiratorially, he whispered: „The volcano, that was me. You know Father appointed me god of fire, don't you? So I thought, you and me, we could support each other a bit, team up, you know ..."

Thor's jaw fell. So he owed his success to his brother? And furthermore, thousands of humans had died for that?

„... rain in the Huang-Ho valley, and then I will send you in return … Brother? Are you listening?"

Mutely, Thor shook his head, staring at his breadroll as if that did not agree with him.

„Maybe you overexerted your magic." Loki mused, concernedly. „Those mortals, I'm sure we could entice them to perform some rituals to cheer you up. I've long been thinking they should really carve a warrior's beating heart out of his chest and present it to the sky for us to partake."

Thor was sick behind the hawthorn bushes.

He blamed it on the meat. An apprentice in the palace kitchen lost his right hand for that, but the young prince learned of that only much later.


	3. Chapter 3

Music: "Heldentod" by Vogelfrey

**Playing the Fringe against the Center (Midgard for Entertainment II)**

A century or two later, Thor returned from his first battle in Midgard, where he had accompanied Balder as his page-boy, as was customary for adolescent future warriors. And hadn't Loki, slightly younger, been so envious when they had set out? The enthusiasm of youth …

The thunderer came back aged beyond his years, and deeply changed. Now he knew why Balder was so often brooding.

All those tales of glorious battle, of slaying worthy enemies on the battlefield, or holding a narrow strait against forces superior in numbers – those were lies, lies paid singers spun.

Three legions they had defeated and killed to the last man on the narrow strip between moor and forest. The battle had not been glorious – a miserable, cowardly casting of javelins from behind peat and sod walls, at freezing, famished soldiers weighted down by their sodden shields and cloaks in the pouring rain Thor had conjured.

Not only had the battle been inglorious, it had been brought about by trickery. For years, at Father's insistence, Balder had been scheming: playing good ally, befriending decision-makers, while behind their backs gathering tribesmen who would not pay taxes. Valuable exercise, Father had said, before dealing with the politics of the important realms.

Part of that valuable exercise was playing the fringe against the center, after a long time of having that center built up. The brothers had even been to Rome, and despite the many flaws – the constant noise and traffic jam, the miasmatic air, the cheaply built multi-storey tenement houses threatening to collapse or go up in flames any time – Thor had been impressed by the mortals' efforts to emulate civilization. The temple of the Lightning Wielder on Capitol Hill was a particularly nice touch, even though the statue looked more like Father. The mortals had of course jumbled the gods' functions over time and got the names all wrong, but it was the thought that counted.

He couldn't help it, he liked the feeble humans who still strove to make the best out of their short lives and build something greater and more durable than themselves. And yet, it all would have to fall just so that Balder could learn how to do it. The Allfather of all the realms had decided so, for the greater good. At least that was what Father and the teachers said when asked.

His and Balder's newest henchmen were a bit more down-to-earth (literally also, of course), accepting that some gods simply liked bloodshed. When Balder had refused to take the proffered heads of the fallen, they had simply nailed them to the trees. This time, Thor had managed to keep the bile down.

* * *

Loki had been waiting by the observatory. On the way to the palace, he pestered his brothers with questions about Midgard. Tales of their deeds would come later, in the hall.

„So you have been to Rome?" Loki asked.

Balder nodded.

„Have you been to the circus? I so wish I could go see the circus, but Father is too busy. You're so lucky."

„Loki." Balder drew in a deep breath. „That circus – how can I put it? It's not like the travelling jesters from Alfheim."

„I know!" Loki interjected happily. „They arrest all those who refuse to worship us and feed them to the lions."

Thor looked into his little brother's shining eyes, and wished he were a farmer's son, leading a peaceful simple life among the Realm Eternal's apple trees.


End file.
